American Valor Quilt Along: The Videos

This fun and easy panel quilt is a great canvas for practicing your free motion quilting. Come along with me as I undertake another free motion quilting adventure. A limited number of the American Valor kit are still available.


There are two videos shot live each week via the AmyQuilts Facebook page on Wednesdays and Fridays, each at 1pm eastern time in the US. The replays will be posted afterward on the Facebook page and also embedded into this post below so that you can watch them without going on Facebook at all.

First we start with a little talk about prepping a quilt for basting and quilting. Click this link to watch it in Facebook where you can see the comments. There's also an introductory blog post as well: American Valor Quilt Along Introduction.




Now we move on to the quilting in this second video! You can watch this video directly on Facebook so you can see comments and questions, or right here on the blog below. We start off with the center star and quilt is lightly so it can be the "star of the show".....



The third video in which I finally have a decent haircut and I stitch some wind into the flag stripes! Watch below or at facebook to catch all the discussion that happened during the live video.




The fourth video is below or you can watch it directly at facebook so you can catch the comments and questions. In this quilting video, I begin outlining the words towards the top of the panel and do a little star and loop fill in the background. (Note to self, do not stand while making last minute adjustments to the camera when it's already on!)


I'll add more videos as they are posted. I hope you will follow along.

American Valor Quilt Along Introduction

Today I started my first video for the American Valor Quilt Along and we stuck to just covering a few pre-quilting basics. In all honesty, I hadn't gotten it all sandwiched and ready to quilt and I probably could have, but realized there were a few things I wanted to talk about that would be easier to show before I sandwiched the top with the batting and backing.


I had to take the picture of the top in two parts so I could get it fairly straight and well lit on my design wall. (OK, and the fact that there are several boxes in front of the design wall didn't help! LOL.) I neglected to pay attention to the star placement on the right vertical strip of stars. Boo. Oh well.


Trimming threads off the back of the top.



Especially if your fabric is off grain (which can happen with digitally printed fabrics and panels like this when you need to cut along a printed section. It's a lot easier to trim before you sandwich than it is to go fishing with a knit picker (tiny crochet hook) and get it out after you realize that dark thread is showing through the top. Here's a video I did where I did just that.




Backing choices!  I am totally crushing over these! They look a little like worn denim, but are a nice quilting cotton. I'll be using the #3 fabric with is nearly a perfect match for the blue around the star border. These will be sold at AmyQuilts.com shortly.


Thread choices! Of course, I'm going to use my beloved Glide thread and since you all want to see my stitching in the video, what I will use is different than what I would choose if I was doing this video for myself. In the next video, I'll have more of the quilt stabilized and we'll move into the actual free motion quilting.


The next video is Friday, May 3 at 1pm Eastern time. Won't you join us? Feel free to share this quilt along info with any of your quilting friends. The more, the merrier!